The present invention relates generally to the field of systems for remotely monitoring fetal status. More particularly, the invention relates to a technique for accessing and viewing data presentations, such as graphical data charts, based upon patient monitoring in a client-server environment through the use of a server and browser, or similar arrangement.
A wide variety of equipment and systems have been developed for monitoring the status of medical patients and procedures, particularly of a fetus and mother. In its simplest form, a patient monitoring system may consist of a sensing and monitoring apparatus located at the patient""s bedside. Physicians, nurses and clinicians may thus maintain constant or periodic records, typically in real time, of the patient""s condition. Monitors of this type include cardiac monitors, respiratory monitors, blood pressure monitors, chemical monitors, such as for oxygen take up, and so forth. In specific instances, such monitors are particularly key to determining the patient""s condition and projecting immediate or medium-term medical needs. For example, in the field of obstetrics, patient condition parameters, such as fetal heartbeat, intensity and duration of contractions, and so forth, are commonly monitored to determine levels of fetal and maternal stress. Based upon such determinations, medications may be administered or modulated, or in certain instances, physician intervention may be warranted.
Continuous or periodic patient monitoring performs at least two roles. Firstly, the monitor provides extremely valuable feedback to care providers for evaluating the patient""s condition and the need for medical attention. Moreover, where the devices are designed to maintain historical information, accurate records may be created for later review and analysis. Currently, such records may take the form of both electronic data, as well as hard copy, such as strip-chart records, and reports, and the like.
Significant changes in the manner in which care providers attend to patients have posed a series of challenges to conventional methods for monitoring patient status and providing information regarding this status. For example, highly specialized physicians may attend to a number of patients in various locations and institutions. Flexible organizations of this type have become extremely useful in offering high quality medical care almost independent of the location of either the patient, the institution, or the physician. While various systems have been developed to convey patient condition data to physicians and specialists, further improvement is still needed.
Depending upon the field of specialization, dedicated systems have been developed, along with specialized software, enabling care providers to obtain patient status information remotely. In one type of system, highly specialized monitoring and communications devices and software may be accessed by physicians via a network. The physician, however, must have access to a specialized work station, or at least to a compatible work station running software specifically designed to interface with that of the monitoring system. While arrangements of this type enable a degree of flexibility by allowing physicians to access the monitored information, they nevertheless impose significant constraints due to the specialized nature of the software and protocols used on both the monitoring side and on the physician or access side. Similar limitations may also be imposed by the existence of various versions of the monitoring or access software.
Where constraints of this type are imposed on either the medical institution or on the remote attending physician, the ultimate utility of the remote monitoring arrangement may be seriously jeopardized. Where an obstetrician is prevented or detained from obtaining up-to-date information on the status of a patient, for example, the physician""s ability to order treatment from a remote location becomes more difficult and uncertain, and less timely. At present, no universal or generally widely accessible system has been developed for monitoring or delivering patient status data to avoid these drawbacks.
There is a need, therefore, for an improved technique for monitoring patient status remotely. There is, at present, a particular need for a technique which avoids the need for specialized software, updated and compatible versions, and thus delays in transmitting, translating, and displaying data.
The present invention provides a technique for remote fetal monitoring designed to respond to these needs. The system is particularly well suited to remote monitoring of patients in medical institutions by physicians equipped with general purpose computers or even laptop, hand held or portable computers. The technique may, however, be extended to various monitoring situations, including emergency medical situations, such as those in which monitoring equipment is located in mobile work stations, such as ambulances. In a particular form of the device, obstetric patient parameters are monitored, including fetal heartbeat and uterine contractions. The technique is ideal for maintaining both electronic and hard-copy records, as well as for transmitting such historical information and real-time updated information to any remote location accessible via a network, such as the Internet.
In a presently preferred configuration, the technique is implemented in a client-server environment. Monitoring equipment at the patient location encodes the patient parameters of interest. The monitoring equipment is coupled to a computer system which includes a server for storing and transmitting data to a remote location upon demand. On the client side, a work station, which may be stationary or mobile, is equipped with a general-purpose browser or a similar network interface. The data is incorporated into a presentation page which is viewable on the browser. Such presentation pages may be configured, for example, through the use of a mark-up language. By employing a generally standard user interface, the constraints imposed on the system from a specialization and compatibility standpoint are resolved minimized, or avoided. Moreover, data may be simply and efficiently updated and transmitted in small packets to provide the most recent patient data available. Any significant changes to the monitoring or data processing hardware or software may be performed on the server-side without requiring updating of client-side software.